Moving from Public Housing to Homeownership: Perceived Barriers to Program Participation and Success

ABSTRACT:

The goals of public housing have evolved from providing shelter to providing opportunities for escaping from welfare and buying one’s own home. Despite numerous federal policies aimed at enhancing resident self-sufficiency and homeownership through programs run by local public housing authorities, little is known about who participates and who succeeds. This study explores barriers to participation and success in an innovative resident self-sufficiency/homeownership program developed by the Housing Authority of the city and county of Denver. We conduct surveys of participants in the Foundations for Homeownership program, eliciting their perceptions regarding willingness and ability to participate in the program and, thereafter, completing it successfully. We find that at time of entry into the program, participants reported, on average, 4.6 major barriers that they perceive would limit their ability to achieve current goals. OLS and logistic regression analyses were conducted to ascertain the degree to which perceived barriers were associated with participants’ demographic, economic, or attitudinal characteristics.